Sean stepped forward in shock. "Scott! My God, what happened to you? Where were you?"
Scott flinched when he heard Sean's voice and focused his gaze on him. He could barely speak as his teeth chattered. "I... I just... I think I went back to the forest. When I woke up, I was by the lake, Sean. I don't know how I went, how I got there."
Sean went over to his brother and grabbed him by the arms. Scott's skin was ice-cold, but strangely, in the places he touched, an intense heat and energy could be felt, as if a motor were running under his skin.
"Did you go out through the window?" Sean asked in a whisper. "Scott, you're soaking wet and covered in mud. If someone had seen you like this..."
Scott looked at his brother in fear. "I don't remember anything, Sean. I just saw dreams... I saw myself running, hunting. Then I woke up with the coldness of the water."
Seeing his brother's helpless state, Sean felt his protective instinct skyrocket. He spoke in a low voice while guiding him toward the bathroom: "Okay, get into a hot shower right now. We have to clean up this mud before Mom gets back. I'm calling Stiles. This situation is way past the 'I feel good' level now, Scott. We need to figure out what's going on."
From outside, the famous and ear-piercing honk of Stiles' trusty jeep rose. Stiles was making his impatience clear by leaning on the horn, as he always did.
At that moment, Scott came out of the bathroom quickly, water dripping from his hair. As he straightened the sleeves of the clean t-shirt he had put on, he looked as if he still hadn't shaken off the blankness and fatigue from the evening. Just as they headed for the door to leave the house, the phone in Sean's pocket began to vibrate and ring.
Sean paused and looked at the screen, then motioned to Scott, "You guys go, I'll be right there," and answered the phone. Leaning against the kitchen counter, Sean listened to the other side for a while. The expression on his face gradually became serious, his eyebrows furrowed, and his voice dropped. "I understand... Yes, I'll be there. Okay," he said, and hung up.
When Stiles honked one more time outside, Sean walked quickly to the front door where Scott was waiting. Meanwhile, Stiles had stuck his head out the window, shouting, "Come on! First period is about to start!"
Sean put his hand on his brother's shoulder and gave him a deep look. Then he turned his gaze to Stiles inside the jeep.
"Stiles!" Sean called out, his voice more authoritative and serious than usual. "I won't be able to come to school today; something very important came up that I need to handle."
Scott turned to his brother in surprise. "What? Sean, what business? Is there a problem?"
Sean brushed off Scott's question and looked directly into Stiles' eyes. "Stiles... Scott is in your hands today. Take very good care of him. Don't leave his side for even a second, do you understand? Call me immediately at the slightest oddity."
Stiles noticed the unusual tone in Sean's voice, set aside his joking, and nodded seriously. "Okay man, don't worry. Me too. Everything's under my control."
Sean turned back to Scott, lowering his voice to a level only he could hear. "Be careful, Scott. Don't think about what happened; just try to focus on class. We'll talk this evening."
Although Scott was uneasy due to his brother's sudden decision, he nodded and walked toward the jeep. Sean stood at the door and watched them until the car moved away. His mind was completely filled with the phone call he just received and his brother's mystery.
As Sean watched Stiles and Scott's retreating jeep, he put his phone in his pocket. His mother, Melissa, had called him saying there was an emergency at the hospital and that he needed to bring some documents or personal items. The tired but authoritative tone in his mother's voice left no room for argument. Sean took one last look at the forest road, took a deep breath, went to a nearby stop, caught a bus, and set off toward the hospital.
However, his mind was still on Scott.
On the school's practice field, the atmosphere was electric. Coach Finstock had moved Scott to offense after his success in goal. While Stiles waited on the sidelines with his helmet on, Sean's furrowed, worried face from that morning echoed in his mind: "Take care of him, don't leave his side..."
Stiles understood at that moment why Sean was so cautious. Because on the field, Scott no longer looked just "good," he looked "dangerous."
With the sound of the whistle, Scott sprang into action. He didn't move with the speed of a normal player, but as if he were gliding like a shadow. The first defender he encountered tried to stop him, but Scott circled around the man with an impossible maneuver. His movements were so fluid that the other players on the field seemed to be in slow motion.
Stiles watched, holding his breath. "Come on Scott, this is too much," he murmured to himself.
In the middle of the field, Jackson rushed at Scott to cut him off. Jackson was determined to hit him with all his strength, but Scott suddenly leaped into the air. Stiles couldn't believe his eyes; Scott literally flew over Jackson. In those split seconds he hung in the air, he fired the ball into the top corner of the goal, as if to tear the net.
The field suddenly went cold. As Coach Finstock looked at the stopwatch in his hand in disbelief, Stiles' hair stood on end. Sean's serious tone from the morning now clicked into place like a stone in his mind.
"Scott is in your hands today..."
Stiles thought as he looked at Scott's sweaty face glowing from under his helmet and that strange, wild energy. Tightening his grip on his stick, he murmured: "Sean... Buddy, these feelings of yours are really scary sometimes."
After practice, Stiles was lost among dozens of internet tabs in his room. Words like "Lycanthropy,""Silver Bullet," and "Wolfsbane" covered the screen. When Scott entered the room, Stiles immediately turned to him and explained the situation.
"Scott, this isn't just about having a good day! You're cursed, man. The full moon is approaching and you... you're turning into a werewolf!"
Scott shook his head as if wanting to deny what he heard. He had a date with Allison that evening and didn't want anything to ruin it. When Stiles said that he should cancel the date to show the seriousness of the situation and that it was dangerous to go out, that foreign rage inside Scott suddenly exploded.
Scott grabbed Stiles in one move and pushed him against the wall. The human look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dark glint. Just as he was about to bring his fist down on Stiles' face, Scott suddenly stopped. He pulled back, panting. When he realized what he had done, he was filled with horror. Unable to contain his frustration, he delivered a sharp blow to the leather chair in the room and shouted, "I'm sorry... I... I'm not like this!" before bolting out of the room.
Stiles, leaning against the wall and trying to breathe, shifted his gaze to the chair. On the leather chair, there were five deep gashes, as if made with a razor. These were not marks a human hand could make; these were claw marks.
Stiles' hands began to shake. Without losing a moment, he grabbed his phone and called Sean.
As soon as the phone was answered, Stiles began shouting without letting Sean ask anything: "Sean! You need to come home right now. Right now! You were right about your feelings, the situation is much worse than we thought. Scott... Scott isn't himself anymore. He shredded the chair, Sean! If you don't come right now, he might kill someone tonight!"
Sean burst into Stiles' house almost breathless. When he entered the room, he found Stiles not at his desk as usual, but frozen in the middle of the room. Stiles' face was white as a sheet; when he saw Sean, the words caught in his throat, and he could only point to the computer chair in the room with his trembling hand.
As Sean approached the chair, his eyes narrowed in astonishment. The high-quality leather upholstery looked as if it had been haphazardly chopped with massive, sharp knives. Deep gashes had torn the leather surface and reached down to the foam of the chair.
"He did this?" Sean asked; the concern in his voice was now at an undeniable level.
"It happened in seconds, Sean," Stiles said, making a claw motion in the air with his hands. "He pinned me to the wall in one move. His eyes... it was like there was something else, something wild inside. Then he shredded this chair in a single blow and fled, apologizing after being shocked by what happened. Sean, he's not just your brother with asthma anymore. He... he's turned into something else."
Sean touched the deep marks on the chair; he could still feel the coldness of that uncontrolled power at his fingertips. "Werewolves... Stiles, I was resisting believing it, but there's no other explanation for these marks. This isn't something a human can do."
Stiles immediately turned back to his desk and showed the research on his computer screen. "Look, the full moon will be directly overhead tonight. Every source I've researched says the first transformation is the most dangerous. If he loses control, he could do something irreversible."
Sean looked into Stiles' fear-filled eyes and asked: "So what do we do now? We can't trap him at home, he's already gone. He said he was meeting Allison at that party, right?"
Stiles nodded in confirmation. "Lydia's party. Scott will be there no matter what."
Sean straightened his jacket determinedly and headed for the door. "Okay. We're going there. But we're not going to that party to have fun, Stiles. We'll just stay in the shadows and watch him. If that 'thing' inside him tries to come out, we have to get him out of there without anyone noticing. I won't let my brother turn into a killer."